Accidents Los Angeles

Dr. John Reinisch was about to sit down to a Mother's Day dinner with his family when he received a distressing call from Childrens Hospital, where he is chief of the plastic surgery unit. A 4-year-old boy's arm had been severed by a washing machine and he was at the hospital awaiting surgery. Reinisch was on call that night, so he raced to the hospital and examined the boy. He told the boy's parents that he would do his best, but he was very doubtful that he could successfully reattach the arm.

You're driving home from work through downtown Los Angeles when a crowded car suddenly pulls in front of your new BMW. Seconds later, another car speeds up, cutting off the first car in front of you. The driver slams on the brakes. You slam on yours, but everything happens so quickly, you end up rear-ending the car in front of you. To make matters worse, the vehicle that triggered the accident flees before you can get a license number. Your nightmare is just beginning.

A veteran television news reporter assigned to cover a news conference in Hollywood was seriously burned Monday when the microwave transmitter extending from a KABC van came too close to a 34,500-volt power line and caused an explosion. The reporter, Adrienne Alpert, 48, was airlifted to Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, where doctors performed emergency surgery to restore blood flow to burn areas over 25% of her body.

Nearly 10 months after the Angels Flight funicular railway cars crashed downtown, killing one person and injuring seven, plans to reopen the attraction are still in limbo. The necessary safety improvements have not even been officially identified. Railway officials say nothing can be done beyond repairing the two badly damaged cars--work that has already begun in an Eastside warehouse--until the National Transportation Safety Board reports on the cause of the Feb. 1 accident.

The towering old eucalyptus whose branch fell and killed a 4-year-old girl in a Highland Park schoolyard had not been pruned in recent memory and belonged to a species known for dropping large branches, tree experts and a school official said Monday. A large branch from a nearby tree crashed to the ground about a month ago as a fifth-grade class looked on, according to a school official and a witness, but no one was injured.

A 7-year-old girl was in critical condition Saturday night after her go-cart hit a wall at a miniature racetrack. She was riding in the go-cart and her father was driving when he lost control of the vehicle, according to Los Angeles police. The crash occurred at about 10:10 p.m. Friday at Pepe's Kartland at 8300 Hayvenhurst Place. The girl was unconscious when paramedics arrived and was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, said Brian Humphrey, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

A veteran Los Angeles fire captain who had just ordered his crew out of a blazing South-Central industrial building died Sunday after the roof caved in, trapping him in the smoky inferno, officials said. It was the department's first fatality in 14 years. Joseph C. Dupee, 38, who friends said had wanted to be a firefighter since elementary school, had just celebrated the birth of his second son 10 days ago, Capt. Steve Ruda said.

A 12-year-old boy was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon after being pulled from a swimming pool by his baby sitter, said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The boy, who lives in an apartment building in the 8400 block of Lindley Avenue where the pool is located, was breathing but "unresponsive" when paramedics arrived at the scene, Humphrey said.

A 12-year-old boy was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon after being pulled from a swimming pool by his baby-sitter, said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The boy, who lives in an apartment building in the 8400 block of Lindley Avenue where the pool is located, was breathing but unresponsive when paramedics arrived, Humphrey said.

A 2-year-old boy trapped upside-down in a swimming pool by a flotation device was saved Saturday by the quick thinking of his older sister and her playmate. The youngster was outside the pool and wearing a flotation device around his waist when his mother briefly left to answer the telephone, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey. The child either fell or jumped into the water and wound up upside down, with the flotation ring keeping his head underwater, Humphrey said.

A woman tinkering with the front end of her car was crushed to death Saturday when the vehicle slipped into gear and rolled over her, police said. The 40-year-old victim was discovered about 5 p.m. by a young boy in the parking lot behind her apartment building in the 8000 block of Langdon Avenue. The woman was found pinned under her compact car, its engine running, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Rod Grahek of the Valley Traffic Division.

The family of Holocaust survivor Leon Praport, who died last month in the crash of the Angels Flight funicular, filed a wide-ranging lawsuit Monday alleging that the city of Los Angeles allowed a "dangerous condition" to exist on public property, creating a "substantial risk of injury" when the downtown railway was in operation. Praport, 83, was killed and his wife, Lola, was one of seven injured when a mechanical failure caused the railway's two cars to collide.

With the investigation of the fatal Angeles Flight accident focusing on mechanical failure, investigators moved Wednesday to lift the two antique cable cars from their Bunker Hill tracks and truck them to a warehouse. A huge, 150-ton overhead crane was brought from Long Beach and outfitted with special sling devices to hoist the cars onto flatbed trucks, said Ted Turpin, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. The operation was expected to be completed this morning. John H.

John H. Welborne was best known as a bow-tied civic booster, a proud fourth-generation Angeleno who was a tireless activist in civic causes and historic preservation campaigns. He wed at one preservationist cause celebre--St. Vibiana's Cathedral--and led one of the movements to rescue another, the Central Library. And for 15 years, he pushed to breathe new life into the once-defunct Angels Flight railway.

An 80-year-old woman whose husband was killed in the accident last week on Angels Flight remained in guarded but stable condition Saturday, authorities said. Lola Praport of Old Bridge, N.J., suffered head and back injuries Thursday after the railway car she and her husband were riding in collided with another car. She is being treated at County-USC Medical Center.

A 62-year-old man was killed when his motor home fell on him while he was repairing it Monday afternoon, Los Angeles police said. The man was repairing the vehicle's front brakes when it fell, crushing him. The accident occurred on Zombar Avenue near Valerio Street about 1:30 p.m., said Sgt. Sam Rhone of the Los Angeles Police Department's Van Nuys Division. The man's name was not released. Apparently the vehicle fell on the man when jacks supporting it gave way, authorities said.

With the investigation of the fatal Angeles Flight accident focusing on mechanical failure, investigators moved Wednesday to lift the two antique cable cars from their Bunker Hill tracks and truck them to a warehouse. A huge, 150-ton overhead crane was brought from Long Beach and outfitted with special sling devices to hoist the cars onto flatbed trucks, said Ted Turpin, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. The operation was expected to be completed this morning. John H.

A 62-year-old man was killed when his motor home fell on him while he was repairing it Monday afternoon, Los Angeles police said. The man was repairing the vehicle's front brakes when it fell, crushing him. The accident occurred on Zombar Avenue near Valerio Street about 1:30 p.m., said Sgt. Sam Rhone of the Los Angeles Police Department's Van Nuys Division. The man's name was not released. Apparently the vehicle fell on the man when jacks supporting it gave way, authorities said.

A team of 16 crisis counselors met Monday with hundreds of parents, children and teachers at a Sun Valley elementary school where a second-grader was killed Friday by an unattended utility cart. An emotional Roscoe Elementary Principal Mary Kurzeka repeatedly told worried listeners she did not know why a 1,300-pound electric vehicle rolled down an incline and fatally crushed 7-year-old Steve Silva against a classroom wall.

A team of 16 crisis counselors reached out to parents, children and teachers Monday as the Roscoe Elementary School community struggled to cope with the tragic death of one of its own. Principal Mary Kurzeka, visibly strained by emotions and endless questions since the accident Friday afternoon, repeatedly told worried listeners she does not know why an unattended 1,300-pound electric utility cart rolled down an incline and fatally crushed 7-year-old Steve Silva against a classroom wall.